Why Rednecks Vote Red

So...this is another one that is going to get you in trouble with your friends if you repeat it...

...But, getting in trouble for not 100% agreeing with absolutely everything anyone on the left or right says is kind of always going to get you in trouble in this day and age.

Just a reminder...

I know, I know an argument can be made on both ends.

This is about pragmatism after all and we really wouldn't be pragmatic if we didn't point out...

And, I know its early in this blog, but we are using memes from the prequel trilogy in this one.

And, if you don't absolutely hate the prequels there is something very very wrong with you.

So even though this is an early post, it seems like a growing tradition, so we really have to work this image in...

...and now seems like a good enough time to do it.

After all, there is no better way to to illustrate how much we hate the prequels.

...moving on...

It is very popular to make fun of rednecks.  I mean, it doesn't take very long while surfing through left wing threads to see shit like this:

And let's face facts here, they are easy targets.  I mean, that redneck shaved an American flag into his chest hair...and his tummy hair and that redneck behind him is wearing the Stars and Bars.  The Confederate Battle Flag.

One is in bad taste, the other is just offensive.

Seriously, the ONLY Confederate Flag I would ever wear is the kind that comes on a foam cap with a ready made mullet, just to make fun of rednecks like that.

Mullet..Business in the front, party in the back.

And it, well, mullets do make anyone a very easy target...even people that we should respect because they can dismantle an atomic bomb with a Swiss army knife and a pack of Juicy Fruit.

It is a hair sin...but the left has hair sins of its own...

So I guess mullets are coming back in their own way.  They are evolving.  And they are still awful.

Now my girlfriend wants me to grow my hair long...and I am trying, and getting irritated by its length, but...I AM NEVER GOING THERE.

Anyway, yeah, no, yeah, it is really easy to make fun of the rednecks.  It's easy to make fun of those country yokels...even though...well, country don't mean dumb.

The fact is, a hell of a lot of our problems are a result of ignoring the rust belt.

That is a fact.

And they know they are getting fucked.

1) They saw their standard of living drop under Reagan. 

2) They saw Clinton Export their jobs.

3) They saw Bush send them to war and cut the VA when they came back injured

4) They saw Obama shut down their coal mines.

Now, I know the objection for #4, Before you voice them

• Yes, we need to move away from fossil fuels
• Yes, it causes global warming
• Yes, working there causes Black Lung
• Yes, there is no such thing as "Clean Coal"

But you know what, #4 is about the only decent paying job they have left in those areas thanks to NAFTA and CAFTA, they depend on that for their only real source of income.

5) CAFTA

And still...

We keep making fun of them.

But there is more.

There is always more.

In the city, there is at least access. 

• There is public transportation 
• There are community colleges
• There are jobs and a way to commute to them
• There are free clinics and a way to commute to them

And those are just to name a few.  The point is, in the city, with the urban poor, there is an infrastructure that people can take advantage of.

Now in the country

• There is no public transportation
• Sometimes there are no libraries
• There are community colleges...sometimes hundreds of miles away
• There are jobs...again, sometimes hundreds of miles away
• There are free clinics...sometimes hundreds of miles away

The fact is, there is no infrastructure.  The opportunities are closed.   We have abandoned them.  The opportunities that are available for the urban poor are not available for the rural poor.

And before you say "They can move" well, moving across town is expensive.  Try moving to another town, or city, with no job and nothing in your bank account.

Because of that some of the rural poor are very, VERY poor.

Some of it looks a lot like a third world country.

And we are making fun of them.

Not only that but...

And this is the part that your friends are going to HATE you for if you make the argument...there is this thing called:

WHITE PRIVILEGE 

And in urban areas, in suburban areas, no one is going to argue it.

I mean, I am white, I don't get pulled over for driving while Black in the city.  That is just a fact.

But, I have a piece of shit car and I do get pulled over for driving while poor in the suburbs...BUT, even then I know it would happen a lot more if I had a poor man's Toyota AND was Black.

But the fact is that, we are forcing people to admit that they have "White Privilege."

I mean, even a friend of mine got pissed at me for pointing out that colonization wasn't ONLY a white European thing.  And, in fact, it is an empire thing that is practiced by empires across the globe and, maybe we should look at how evil Empires are before we blame colonization on race.

I mean, look at the horrible things that empires did to the galaxy.

And did I mention he was white?

He was literally trying to shame and guilt me into saying that:

"No, despite world history, it is ONLY White People that had colonies."

And, historically, that's not even true for Africa, let alone the rest of the world.

But like I said, I'm a suburban white guy...I understand that the color of my skin and the fact that nearly everyone can pronounce my name gives me a leg up in the world.

All I was doing was playing my "I have a history degree" card...and then my "I am so not going to rewrite history just to suit politics" card.

So whatever, that is me.  And I will admit that I have a privilege and that comes with my race...I've seen it everyday. 

I mean, I am more than certain my buddy Kasheem has missed a job interview or two because people wanted to save themselves the embarrassment of not being able to pronounce "Kasheem."  And I am sure he's missed even more because Kasheem is clearly an African-American name.

Now, let's see what happens when you try to force someone living in a place like this to admit that they are "privileged."

You see, they are poor.

And we have already gone over why they are poor...see points 1-5 above.

And remember, I have been pulled over MANY times in the suburbs for driving while poor.  I am sure it happens elsewhere, especially when that elsewhere is over 90% white.

And we have already gone over the difference of being poor in a place like this and being poor in a city...infrastructure and access to opportunities.

Now, they are going to be focused on the "privilege" part of that...and we on the left are going to force them to admit that they are privileged.

And if they don't bow down and tell us how privileged they are...

We are going to call them this:

That's right, if they don't admit that they are privileged, despite the fact that they are living in 3rd World poverty in the United States, we are going to call them "Racist."

And that's when the "White" in "White Privilege" is heard.  That is when they focus on the racial part of it.

And then, after we are going to call them racist, when they try to point out how NOT privileged they are because of said poverty, we may say things like this:

Or at least some of us are going to say something like that...when they point out that they are poor and forcing them to say how privileged they are is kind of like mocking the fact that they are living in poverty.

Now, have you stopped to think about that?

Really, look at it this way.

Forcing someone that is living in poverty to tell you how privileged they are is mocking their poverty.

And, people, well, they are very sensitive about being poor.

But, it is OK to do it to them because, well they are...

And even if they DO admit that they are privileged, despite the fact that they are living in poverty, we are still going to throw down the redneck card.

You know, we are going to make fun of them for shit like this:

And there is nothing that is going to stop us from making fun of them for that.

And, we are pissed that they aren't voting out way.

Let me repeat that:

We are Pissed That They Are Not Voting Our Way

Now, before you object...that is a fact.

There are a ton of questions like:

1) Why do they vote for Republicans that screw them?

• And, of course, the answer is because both sides have screwed them
• BUT, out of the two sides, the Republicans are NOT mocking them, at least not openly

2) Why do they still support Trump even though they admitted that they knew he wouldn't help them?

• And, well, Hillary did call them "deplorable" 
• And some people on the left are still forcing them to tell them how privileged they are
• And both sides screwed them
• And...the Republican's aren't mocking them.

3) There are even questions about how radicalized they are becoming, how openly racist they are becoming.

• And look at all the redneck memes here, they aren't new and the insulting ones are exclusively from the left
• And, as I said, people are still telling them: Admit you're privileged or you're a racist
• And, as I pointed out, while all the rhetoric is against them, we are talking about how bad it is to live in poverty in the urban areas and mocking the poverty in the rural areas...and "urban" still translates to "Black"
• And the Republicans aren't mocking them

So there is that.  You know, the opportunities that come with infrastructure are in the cities, they know it and we are making fun of them, and talking about helping the poor in the city...which they associate with "Black."

• And the Republicans aren't mocking them

 And while we are doing that, we are forcing them to say how privileged they are to live in poverty or we are going to call them "racist."

• And the Republicans aren't mocking them

And I'll even admit to being the type that, when encountered with:

Say "X" or I am going to threaten/shame you into doing it

My initial reaction is to say

Fuck you.

And that's mainly because you didn't try to persuade me, you demanded than threatened or shamed me hoping that I'll agree out of fear rather than debate.

• The Republicans aren't mocking them.  They aren't trying to shame or threaten them onto their side.  They are welcoming them with open arms and telling them how much they understand...hence Trump and the coal thing.

We are pushing them because, well, we openly view them like this:

And we are somehow confused as to why they are pushing back?

• You can only insult someone so much before they push back.
• You can only shame someone so much before they push back.
• You can only taunt someone so much before they push back.
• You can only mock people so much before they push back.

And when they have enough.  When they get so pissed by how they are being treated, well, it comes to the surface as this:

And it comes to the surface as this:

And we are SHOCKED. 

Why are we shocked? 

We were making fun of them for being shit like this.  We told them this is what they are and we told them this is all they are and we told them that, no matter what, this was how we were going to view them.

• And the Republicans are NOT mocking them.

Let's face it, this is the situation that has been brought to a head by our own rhetoric.

And that rhetoric isn't changing at all.  In fact, that rhetoric is becoming more radicalized and more hateful.  It's gotten to the point where you can't even hate a remake without being attacked by the far left for misogyny because of...reasons.  Reasons that had nothing to do with why you didn't like the film to begin with.

We have directors, politicians, students, professors, we have journalists, we have people on the internet, we have the very structure of the left pushing people to the right because, well, it is easy to mock rednecks.  It is VERY easy to mock mullets.

And, let's face it, it is just as politically correct to be openly discriminatory against people in rural communities facing extreme poverty as it is to be openly racist against the Irish.  And that is being reinforced every day.

Now there is a way to fix it.  There is a way to correct it and bring them back into the fold.

It's simple:

1) Don't force them to say they are privileged because they are white.

• Instead realize that they are poor
• And then address their needs caused by their poverty

2) Stop supporting the exportation of jobs for globalization--it creates sweatshops abroad anyway.

• Instead, bring the jobs back to America
• Understand that, when they say "America First" they mean "Bring our jobs back.

3) Stop mocking the country, just stop making fun of them

• Because, the GOP doesn't post anti-redneck memes.  Their redneck memes are Jeff Foxworthy
• And, honestly, when you mock someone, they aren't going to vote for you, they are going to stand against you.

But, honestly, this is going to take years.  It will be a generational thing. 

Jack and Bobby Kennedy, LBJ, they were the last people on the left that didn't make fun of rural Americans.  And LBJ, yeah, he was one of them, but Jack and Bobby weren't.  They were the upper class.  They were in the 1%, but they still had class enough to embrace them.

We can only blame the Southern Strategy so much.  The fact is, that "we lost the south for a generation" turned into two generations and then three because when we weren't busy mocking them and insulting them like they were drunken fighting Irishmen...we were busy ignoring their economic needs.

We can bring them back, all we need to do is change our own rhetoric.

That doesn't mean we need to embrace the racist rhetoric of the Republican Party.  That just means we need to stop the crap we are saying about them now.  We need to change how we talk about them.  We need to change how we view them in our own eyes.

Because, you can't bully and ridicule and make fun of someone...and then ask them to vote for your cause.

Taxes on Religion

Let's be honest from the start, this is one of those things that is going to get you labeled as a "conservative" even if you are literally a card carrying member of the International Socialist Organization.

So, if you plan on repeating any of this, tread softly, it well piss your friends off...if your friends are liberals.  Or progressives...or really anything at all.

So...these things exist:

No, that's not a fucking Green Day concert.

That image up there, that is a fucking church and all those seats are filled with people that are actually attending that church.

Now, if you were raised Catholic like I was...you already have religious problems with that.  Being Catholic means that you are used to churches having a ton of unnecessary shit and jewels and shit and gold and shit and art and shit and things that really shouldn't have anything at all to do with a poor humble hippie fisherman...hippie carpenter...hippie whatever.

I know, I'm a great Catholic...

...but still Catholic enough to have an issue with Mega Churches.  I mean, I walk into one, I take a look at the stadium seating and the enormous screens and I think "Antichrist."

I get visions of The Omen stuck in my head.

The good one, not the shitty remake.

I mean, churches are supposed to look like this:

And for those of you that are idiots, the above picture is Notre Dame.  That is an ENORMOUS church.  It's a very lavish church...and it is tiny compared to that huge American mega-church with the giant screen and the auditorium seating.

And, Notre Dame, well technically it is a cathedral.

All accuracy and technicalities aside, "cathedral" is fancy talk for:

Super big and expensive church that is lavishly decorated and costs a ton of money.

And, unlike the mega church, Notre Dame does NOT have an enormous cafeteria filled with $12 dollar burgers.  People don't work as baristas in cathedrals.

The point is...Catholic or not, churches have a ton of money...which, really, they shouldn't.

At least the Catholic church also operates as an enormous charity...as does the United Methodist Church...and honestly, some few Mega Churches...and, OK, fine, a lot of churches all over the world are also pretty OK charities.

And, honestly, I am so not the type to hate a charity because it's religious.  Honestly, my attitude is:

"If you are helping people, if you are feeding the poor, no matter what other sins you have, that's pretty cool of you.  Even if I hate everything about you, thanks, you're helping at least a little."

And, honestly, if are one of those people that pisses all over a charity because it has ties to A or B thing you don't like...well...you're just a fucking asshole.  There are no two ways about that.

You may hate the Clinton's because you're a conservative...but fuck you, the charity is pretty cool.

You might hate religion...but, the charity part is pretty cool.

You get the point...

...moving on...

Because churches have so much money, enough to make Solomon blush, well, a lot of people are saying this:

Or they are saying something close to it.

They are saying "tax the church"

And, hey, I can kind of see the meme thing here.

It seems like an easy enough solution...but....

You see that question there?

When did Christianity become a political party?

What that is, is people complaining that the church has too  much influence in politics...and you know what, they are right.

Religious institutions have an INSANE amount if influence in politics...I mean, look at this guy:

He was hugely religious.  He was a born again and more than a few times he mentioned that God wanted him to be president.

His church had a serious influence on politics and, today, in the Republican Party, among the conservatives, some churches remain hugely political.

That is just a fact.

And it is THE fact that will make your left leaning friends call you a "conservative" for repeating any of this.

But, we also have this:

I know, it is like, one of the MOST unpopular things on BOTH the left and the right in American politics today.

And for those of you that for some reason do not have it memorized it reads like this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And it is the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, the first 10 of which comprise the Bill of Rights.

 Now, as hated as the 1st Amendment is in America...by BOTH sides...a lot of people think that it is the 1st Amendment that is intended to keep religion out of politics.

That is a load of shit.

Seriously, read it again.  All it says is that the government can't butt in and get involved with religion.  It says it can't prohibit religion.  It says you have the right to worship whatever you want...even if it's this ass hole:

Moving on....

What keeps religious institutes out of politics is NOT the 1st Amendment.  All that does is guarantee that they have the right to exist, you have the right to follow them, and you have the right to make up your own religions, establish them, and persuade your followers to worship Jarjar Binks if you so choose.

What actually is intended to keep religion out of politics are taxes.

With Taxes come certain rights.

Look at corporations.

Now if religious institutions remain tax exempt...there is an argument that they can NOT have a say in politics.  The government can actually crack down on that.

If you tax religious institutions, well, they are then legally allowed to donate vast sums of money to political campaigns...just like corporations do.

And that is just for starters.

Taxing religion is opening the doors and welcoming them to get involved in politics even more than they already are.

And remember, they are conservative and they have more money than you.  And money is legally political speech, SCOTUS saw to that.

So, I know the temptation to be a good little progressive and yell...

TAX THE CHURCH!!!!!

...at the top of your lungs.

But remember, MOST of the people that are screaming to tax them are also bitching about the amount of influence they already have in our political system...and that is just going to give them more...much...much...more.

So, is all that extra tax money to build the American war machine really worth it?

We do live in the United States of America after all, we aren't Europe, taxing the church and simultaneously restraining the speech and political power that will give them, well, that will mean SCOTUS battles at the least and massive rewrites to the Constitution at the worst.

It could also mean, at an extreme end, that we are opening the door for an eventual theocracy and, that would really suck.

Star Wars and Ghostbusters: Political Red Flags

Wait, what?  What the heck does this have to do with politics?

We are sorry, the author is a nerd.  A VERY, VERY, big nerd.  And, a Gen-X nerd.

Gen-X being the group that brought cynical pragmatism to politics, to the left in specific, and the group that is now getting attacked for it.

And, Nerd+Gen-X=

Now, people my age were going to hate Episode VII no matter what....

NO MATTER WHAT!!!!

We were dealing with absolutes here and absolutely unless Disney delivered the Citizen Kane of the Star Wars franchise, Generation-X would have despised it.

Let's be honest, even a Citizen Kane worthy episode would never have met our expectations...even after the prequels.

Even after our hopes were shattered with I-III, there would have been expectations that were too high, something that we would have hated just as much as...

And in the Force Awakens they did give us something to hate just as much.  They gave us this:

And words were thrown around here, mainly the word "Mary" coupled with the word "Sue."

We can argue if she was a Mary Sue or not...but that is not the point, the point is that there were a lot of people that saw her as one and a lot of people that took that in an entirely opposite direction.

For the sake of argument, we are going to summarize--briefly--why people didn't like Rey.

And in the minds of Star Wars fans, there was justification for that.

Mainly that she was 19, new, and never needed saving.  Luke needed saving a few times in Episode IV.

Once against the Sandmen by Obi, once in the bar, again by Obi.

He's made mistakes,  He was in a position of vulnerability more than a few times, and he had a lot of help from a lot of people.

Rey, on the other hand, is perfect from the start.  She does the saving for everyone.  In fact, the only real time she needed help was when Chewie picked her up at the very end before Death Star 2.5 blew up...and that was a legit.  

She was a master Jedi by the end of the movie.  A Jedi Master.  She was the ultimate Jedi that bests everyone and...

And everyone seems to instantly love her right away.  They all trust her completely.

And she did all of this without the established backstory that would explain how she is already better than everyone and trusted by everyone.

It all fits into the definition of "Mary Sue" in the minds of the pro-Mary Sue crowd.

And, besting Han at the Falcon...very, VERY, insulting to Solo fans.

...where is the room for growth?  How do you develop a character that is already perfect?

 And to be honest, it can be understood.  It is Star Wars, a Mary Sue is a fanfiction thing and, when given the opportunity to write a Star Wars movie, it would be near impossible to NOT be writing fanfiction.  Look at Ewan McGregor, they had to edit out the lightsaber noises he constantly made when using one on set.  It's hard not to be a little kid fan even if you are a paid professional, at least when Star Wars is involved.

But with Mary Sue came a political issue, a very real one.

The political issue is that, not liking Rey got people an instant political label:

And it was done to really silence any objection to a character that feminists liked because, well, she was a super strong female character in a franchise that really only had three or four women in the entire galaxy.

Which leaves people to wonder how there are enough people to even have an intergalactic war, let alone a bar brawl, with only around a dozen women...only two of which were lead characters.

So, politically, you are NOT ALLOWED TO HATE A FEMALE CHARACTER, even one that is a Mary Sue.

And that horrible misogynist label is still frequently applied in nerd arguments, even though most of the same people that hate Rey love Jyn.

We could go on about Jyn, but let's leave it at: 

She's an awesome character, she has flaws that make her a believable character and she is a female lead.

Because of that, most of the same people that hated Rey loved Jyn. The exceptions, largely being, the people that came to the films with a feminist political agenda and an anti-feminist political agenda.

So clearly a lot of the anti-Rey fans aren't objecting to a strong female lead...given that the ONLY people that seem to hate Jyn are the Rey fans that argue "You're a misogynist" for not liking her...

...or the Anti-Rogue One fans that, let's face it, really are objecting to one thing in the movie.  

Lack of a lightsaber battle.

And for those of you that are hating on Rogue One because of the lack of a lightsaber battle, I feel you, I don't agree with you, but this isn't the place to argue that...

...This is a political blog.

The fact is, we are seeing something else going on here.

And that something else breaks down to one word: Misogynist.

The word is being used to censor disagreement, and done so for a political goal, in this case to force a feminist idea onto people that really aren't objecting to a character--largely--because of political reasons.

It is bringing politics into the arts to start an argument, a one sided one do to the language.

Calling someone a "misogynist" is like calling someone a "racist," even though their actions or beliefs did not carry said sentiment, but rather because they didn't agree with something said.  In either case it is done to shame them.  In these cases, it is done to shame them into silence.

It is a word used in an attempt to silence opposition argument:

It is an attempt at censorship over, of all things, a movie.

That is right, a political movement is attempting to silence people for not liking a character in a movie...to shame them into silencing them.

And it wouldn't be that big of a deal if it was an isolated occurrence.  However it happened again for almost the same reasons...kind of.

Now to be fair to Ghostbusters, there was a misogynistic backlash against the film.

But, to be fair to the misogynistic backlash, SOME of it was in response to being called a "misogynist" for objecting to Rey in Star Wars.  Not all of it, but there was a lot of "You are trying to force an agenda down our throats."

Honestly, that may be the case.

Honestly, it may not be the case as well.

From the get-go, there were people like me that were going to buy a ticket to see the movie, even though we suspected we would instantly hate it because by and large remakes and reboots stink.

I've been complaining about them for years and years.  I started complaining about them with Lost in Space and I really hit my high notes with Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street where, in the latter, they reduced Freddie into a pedophile psycho-killer and because of the pedo thing, they couldn't honestly make him the lovable wise-cracking psycho-killer...

...because you really do NOT want to make a lovable pedophile do you?  No, a lovable child killer, fine--kind of--which is why they dropped the pedo thing in the originals.  It's crossing the line of bad taste little too much.

Honestly, though, you remake Freddie into someone without a sense of humor and you kill the franchise.

And when it came to Ghostbusters, well, it was a remake, it was a reboot and there are a lot of people, usually in Generation-X, that HATE remakes.

But yet again, the hatred for remake was totally ignored and, well, even if the argument was based on hating remakes, the people that didn't say they loved the movie were labeled as...

Even the director himself said that:

"If you don't like the movie you are a misogynist."

Which people like me look at as egotistical.   

It's like saying:

 "I've made a movie so great, so brilliant, so beautiful, that you shouldn't find a single flaw in it unless you, yourself, are a seriously flawed individual."

What does this mean?

Why is this important?

It's important because art and propaganda are mixed.  They always have been.  

Now there can be art for the sake of art.  But there can never really be propaganda without art.  Literature,  paintings, photographs, graphic designs, and even movies...they all can be made for reasons of propaganda.

And maybe Star Wars and Ghostbusters and Wonderwoman--which had the same effect when people didn't like it and even if those people were anti-DC--had an agenda.  

Well, to be fair, we all know that Star Wars HAS an agenda, but we never really cared about it to begin with.  

Well, to be fair, the Star Wars agenda was always anti-Empire and not pro-feminist.

So, the point?

The point is that, to a political people, these movies are seen as a kind of propaganda, even if they were not made to be and, in all honesty, they probably were not.  They were most likely made for one singular reason...to make money.

So the likelihood that they were made with a serious political agenda is pretty small.

But a group has taken to them as if they were political, as if they were propaganda...

And, when that propaganda isn't totally accepted, they are trying to shame the people that do not accept it into silence.

And we are seeing this across the political board.

This is something that should worry you.  Not because of the feminist or anti-feminist agendas, but because people are attacking people for not totally accepting propaganda.  They are silencing speech, and that applies to adopted propaganda as much as it does created propaganda.  

That is a red flag.

Be afraid.

Realpolitik

re·al·po·li·tik

 rāˈälpōliˌtēk

•  a system of politics or principles based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations.
• Realpolitik is politics or diplomacy based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises. In this respect, it shares aspects of its philosophical approach with those of realism and pragmatism. It is often simply referred to as pragmatism in politics, e.g. "pursuing pragmatic policies". The term Realpolitik is sometimes used pejoratively to imply politics that are perceived as coercive, amoral, or Machiavellian. 

Now that is something we don't hear that much today "pragmatism" and when you do hear it, it's usually a negative.  

And this is on both sides.  Left and Right.  It also runs the spectrum from Far Left to Far Right.

In fact, it goes to the extent that the left and right will accuse you of being on the other side.  And this, I think, is a good thing at the moment.

If both the left and the right are attacking you, you're doing something right.  

It's what we need at the moment.  In America and abroad where the politics are shifting to populism, and that should be unsettling, especially in America where it seems like it is taking on a lynch mob persona on, again, both the left and the right.

Hence the term "tyranny of the majority."

That seems evil as well, but think about it.

Right now we have masked people running around assaulting people for peacefully speaking things that they disagree with.

That sounds a lot like the lynch mob doesn't it?

But it is accepted as a good thing by a lot of Americans...because it is the majority view.

And on the other side, we have people going to protests with weapons, weapons they are openly carried and though the case can be made that it is a reaction to the above masked lynch mob, they are not elected, they are not given any permission by elected officials...

...and, what is worse is, bringing weapons to political discussions --and that is all a protest is--effectively silences opposition speech.

Ultimately, its the same lynch mob, just with different weapons and different approaches.  

So, there is something that clearly needs to be said about all of this.  We are seeing extremes here and, well, it's about time for some pragmatism in politics.

Honestly, if you aren't pragmatic, if you don't look at a situation and think "how am I going to do this?"  If you charge headlong into the abyss...you end up in a dark abyss.

Politics is about getting things passed.  Its about getting things done.  It's about making things work and building them up.

Nothing is going to get done if all you want to do is fight.  And all will be achieved is destruction. 

Think about.  You might have to do some sneaky and underhanded things, but at least you got something done.  And you did it in a way that didn't destroy anything.